Traverse Town Chronicles
by Krivoklatsko
Summary: The story of Traverse Town, as told by its citizens
1. Reminiscing

**Author's note: There is a cafe in Traverse Town's First District, just next to the item shop that Huey, Dewey, and Louie run (lovely children). But don't worry about missing it if you visit, as most of the town square is just scenery for it. Honestly, it would be like a man seeing his wife but not what she is wearing. (This happens of course, but only to men, and not always). Back on subject: I mention this café because, as we all know, a café is a great place for brooding; and wizards, as we all know, like to brood over things; so, as we all know by now, the café has a wizard in it, doing what wizards do best.**

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* * *

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Harry Dresden was brooding, alone if you don't count his tea. He was broke, as usual; but trouble, and therefore work, wasn't coming his way anymore; so he actually had to worry about the prospect of being homeless. Surprisingly, it was easier to find business in Chicago than in a world that actually believed in the arcane. Harry sipped some tea with his back to a red brick corner, giving him a safe spot from which he could see the rest of First District. This and that grumbled through his head unhappily, the usual disappointed him, and a strange new occurrence bothered him slightly. It was his usual day. Within a moment, he was joined by another common patron of the Café. She sat in a second chair at his table, off to one side of his corner, and signaled for some tea. A younger girl, almost old enough to not be a teenager, jogged over to the table and set it down in a flourish, then ran back to the bar, kicking her feet up behind her as she went.

"Isn't she that pocket monster kid?"

Harry Dresden cast a sidelong glare at his guest and friend, Samus Aran. "Yes. Yes she is," he mumbled. "Johnny's little girl." He sipped some tea and resumed glowering, alone. Samus chugged her tea full on, seemingly at ease with the extreme just-poured temperature.

"You aren't going to honestly try and brood through my entire sit here like last time, are you, Dresden?"

He looked away from his thoughts and smiled at her grimly. "I was planning on doing exactly that, actually." He resumed brooding again to prove the point.

Samus shook her head, setting a platinum blonde braid of hair loose in the lightest breeze available.

"How's business going for you, then?"

Harry scoffed. "Terribly. This town is absolutely loaded with wizards, sorcerers, the fae…" he gestured onward and sipped some tea. "There isn't really a centralized police force to contract me, and no one seems afraid of the arcane enough to bother hiring a consultant. I feel useless."

She smiled sympathetically and tried to loosen him with a jab. "And you still won't sell love potions?"

"I'm a Wizard, not a Magician."

She smiled suggestively. "Wizards don't make love potions?"

Harry eyed her over his tea. "Respectable wizards don't."

Samus leaned back in her chair, the open posture of hers telling the entire world that she was as confident as anyone could be. She didn't have anything to be self-conscious about, of course, but her blue, form-fitting Zero Suit left little to the imagination. A lesser woman would be embarrassed. Dresden swallowed hard despite himself.

"What about you?" He mumbled. "How has a bounty hunter been finding work in such a calm Traverse Town?"

Harry had met Samus here many times before. After his home, Chicago, was attacked by heartless, Harry had found himself lying in a blue room that Samus had just checked into. That was several years ago. She set him up in town and showed him around. He was a Wizard for hire, and had the niche market in his old life. She was a bounty hunter, and there was always room for contract killers.

"I mean, seriously," he added. "Who could possibly need killing here?"

She smiled at him with what first appeared to be coyness, and then turned to concern.

"Who else? Nobodies."

Harry blinked. "What Nobodies? We haven't had Nobodies around here for years let alone Heartless and- and Unbirths! Remember those? That was…" He added a vague gesture, which the waitress mistook for more tea. She was there in an overly excited instant.

"Here you are, sir!" She forced another cup on him and disappeared. Her father, Johnny, had raised her to work hard, and to call everyone "sir" or "mamzel" but seemed to forget lessons on thinking and restraint.

Samus was coy again. "So there are no Nobodies. People are still afraid." She sipped some tea full-on. Harry was wise enough to let her be manlier, and sipped only conservatively. If she didn't want to savor the flavor, that was fine by him. "Wait, wait, wait. _You_ guard against _Heartless? _Did you get a hold of a keyblade in the last day or two?"

Samus shrugged nonchalantly. "My clients say I'm better than nothing. Good logic if you ask me."

Harry shook his head. "But you don't have any real weapons for them, do you? Could you really kill a considerable amount?"

She nodded. "That's what I do. I walk rich kids to school, guard expensive things, travel with merchants. Whatever puts munny in my pocket."

Harry nodded. "Makes sense, I suppose."

They sat in silence, brooding and ruminating, until Samus looked around the café and wondered aloud, "I think we're the only two people that actually stayed here."

Harry glanced at the third chair at their table curiously. "Yeah. Johnny's been gone a while."

She nodded. "Not just him, though. There's…"

A wave of nostalgia settled on them then, along with several years' worth of memories.

"Well," Samus said. "Yeah. I suppose we should remember our arrival here first."


	2. Jonathan Ramses Mayfield

If records were kept in Traverse Town, Jonathan Ramses Mayfield would be a well-decorated individual. After all, he was the 100,000th arrival in town, among other things.

He woke with a start in the middle of the night, covered in cardboard and trash that held him down for a moment of scrimmage before he got his feet and senses. His fatigues were intact, and the las-pistol strapped across his chest was still loaded, along with his Hotshot Las-rifle, which he found on the ground nearby. He noticed almost immediately that his kit and armor were gone, along with his radio, leaving him feeling almost naked in green fatigues. It wasn't a good feeling. Even worse was his predicament. He was standing in a dead-end alleyway that wasn't very long, five meters at most. The ground was gray cobblestone and the walls of the buildings near him were made of the same color of bricks. The night sky welcomed him silently from above.

He paced himself to the mouth of the alleyway, which was actually a corner, and peered around it with his rifle ready. Something was wrong. After being assaulted for several hours by blue daemons with crimson eyes, he was sure of that. But now something was wronger. What little he could see of the city he was in was familiar to him, distinctly Cadian, but it wasn't. He simply was not home.

Of course, what defined Cadian cities, "kasrs," was their inaccessibility and ragtag organization, designed to slow down invaders. He looked up at the night sky and failed to pick out any recognizable constellations, confirming his lack of location. He wiped some sweat and grime off his brow and stepped farther out around the corner until he was standing at the top of a flight of steps. He guessed correctly that he was now overlooking the plaza in the First District. It was a well-educated guess, considering the large banner that had been draped over the gates across the square from him.

But still, something was wrong, wronger. The plaza was empty; no blue daemons were rising from the ground; no one was screaming. In fact, no one was there. The entire city seemed empty, abandoned even by the wind. The stones were his only company until a cough sent him down the stairs and into the cover of a mailbox that parodied a mouth. Mayfield was quick enough to not have been spotted by whoever came to a stop just above his hiding spot. The mailbox, so perfectly placed, left him enough space to slip between it and the wall, right next to the steps.

Someone, whoever had coughed, stopped by the wall and rested against it. He heaved a tired kind of sigh before lighting a cigarette. Ash and smoke drifted down to Jonathan, followed soon by conversation.

"The morn' is not my suit of choice," said the smoker.

Mayfield, after years as a Kasrkin, an elite among elites, could hardly sympathize with anyone who whined. But more importantly, he didn't know anyone with a dialect similar to what he'd heard.

"What suits do you own?" mumbled another smoker, satire oozing from him. More ash came drizzling over the wall like rain, landing on Mayfield's shoulders. "And be glad anyway," the second smoker continued. "For the morn' is greeted with breakfast."

The first man grunted his acknowledgment as the second leaned over the wall. Jonathan Mayfield was truly pinned now. Any motion or noise would give him away instantly.

"breakfast," the first smoker mumbled. "breaking the night's fast. Clever."

"Aye. For what is life without wit to spar against another mind?"

"Better to spar against an enemy," the first mumbled.

"Ah, you long for a Capulet to slay. Not satisfied with the blue deadlies?"

"Satisfied?" The first man stood off of the wall. "Terrified! My, God! Those eyes!"

"The claws worry me more," the second man parried. "Aside from which, I have oft' enough heard they only appear upon the arrival of others."

The first smoker didn't seem impressed. "I daren't risk my guard on rumors. They come everywhere and everywhen, I say."

He sighed. They both paused to drag on their smokes.

"On the arrival of other you say?" The first man mumbled.

"Aye. A star dies, men and women and children join our ranks, and with a suddenness we are overrun."

The two men sighed, both leaning heavily over the wall now. If either of them took a peek down, they'd see Mayfield looking right back up.

"All's well then," the first smoker whispered. "So long as we don't meet anyone new."

"Aye."

The conversation ended there in a contemplative silence. Mayfield had a nice pile of ash on his shoulders going, but no intentions of shaking it off. The smoke continued to drift down to him. And the night sky, he suddenly realized, was still greeting him with all of its stars. Morning couldn't possibly come for at least four hours then. His train of thought was cut off by a spurt of blood that landed next to him. He refocused his eyes in time to dodge the bodies that fell afterward. Both men landed next to him in ridiculously bright outfits that were stained crimson with their blood. They were armed only with rapiers, which they hadn't drawn. Silence ensued again. Mayfield was pressed against the same wall, farther from the steps now, almost wishing he could at least still be home if he had to fight.

Again, his thoughts were cut short. Some damned creature was scraping its claws along the cobblestone above him, taking up the patrol of the deceased. He thought back to the blue creatures he had seen on Cadia, wondering if he was hearing the same. Mayfield waited, still silent, as the creature paced away. He could tell when it was gone. Without explanation, he simply knew. The world wasn't as oppressive without its presence. _The world_. He looked to the sky again, hoping to recognize any star, that maybe he had made a mistake. But no. He wasn't on Cadia, anywhere near his wife or family. So he made his way back to the alley where, hopefully, he could hide himself until morning. Hopefuly.


	3. Samus Aran

Yuffie was sitting at their table now, using her chair backwards and propping her chin up on her flaccid wrist. "Wizards make good story tellers," she said. Dresden shrugged and thanked her. "I'm just repeating what Mayfield told me." A cup of tea found its way to his hand and he sipped at it. Yuffie turned her interested gaze to Samus, the usually quiet woman. Samus returned the gaze, as if it were a question. "What about you?" Yuffie asked. "What was it like when you first got here?"

She smiled lightly at the memory.

* * *

Samus Aran, bounty hunter extraordinaire, woke under the gaze of her only haunt. She could see it clearly. Up among the stars, high above her, Zebes Rising in the night. She blinked her eyes clear and the image shimmered into the recesses of her imagination. There were only stars in the sky now. Zebes was gone, forever. She stayed there for a while, watching as the lights in its place sparkled and spasmed freely, taking in their clarity. Waking under stars she couldn't recognize wasn't new to her after working so long for the Galactic Federation.

She sighed and wiggled her fingers and toes. All twenty were still there, as were her hands and feet. Good, she thought. Waking with toes and fingers was a good sign. It meant she had legs and arms too. She felt her legs next, sensed the numb, aching throb, as if she had just woken from a coma (another familiar sensation), and was happy to find that they were otherwise fine. Her arms, also, were uninjured, only bothered by just a mild stiffness.

She lifted her arms above her head and stretched, hoping to get the full sense of her torso next. She slid. That was all she could tell. She was falling, and suddenly, nothing was under her. Stretching had sent her down a slant and over an edge. She swiveled and struck out with her hand, catching the ledge by three fingers and bruising the other two. The rest of her body weight carried her through the swing and slammed her against a window in the wall of whatever structure she was on. It didn't break, which meant it hurt.

She shook her head clear and secured her grip on the ledge above her, a roof. Less than a hundred feet down was a cobblestone street, but something else had her attention. Her reflection was greeting her in the window. Her image, a mass of blue body-suit, didn't look right. She couldn't see her golden hair on top of it, or her head for that matter, and it wasn't quite her shape. Then it turned and revealed two red slants. Was she bleeding? Samus righted her grip on the roof and looked herself over quickly. No blood, or red, at all was on the front side of the skin-tight zero suit. She looked back in the reflection and realized (her second shock of the day) that it wasn't. The blue creature inside shattered the glass and slashed at her exposed body with meaty paws that took the wind from her. She kicked hard at its face to drive it back and threw herself back onto the roof in a panic, panting to regain her composure.

It was only then that she remembered her entire last day. Visions of the blue creatures swarming around her in dozens filled her head. From within the window, the creature she had just encountered warbled, or whatever its noise could be called. She remembered that too, an unnatural noise that didn't signify a call or a plea like any normal creature would have- not a bark like a dog. Nothing about them was natural, as if they simply didn't belong in this world. She shifted her weight from all fours into a crouch, breath finally caught, and remembered her final moments before arriving on the roof. Blue bodies with red eyes were everywhere. White claws slashed hard at her armor. But she hadn't died. She didn't go down. Everything simply faded away, as if the very world she was on had been destroyed, but hadn't taken her with it. This new world of hers, with grey buildings and red roofs, was where she had arrived. And that sparked her curiosity.

She stood and realized, with a stab of irony to her abs, that she was now bleeding. She gasped. The blue creature warbled. And then, as if it had forgotten her or grown bored, it turned away from the window below her and paced its way farther inside. The sound of its claws scrapping against the carpeted floor of the building gave it away. She resolved to run rooftops, rather than risk another introduction, and chuckled at a sudden, brief flash of a childhood memory. "The ground is lava."

She wiped her blood off and set herself into an instant sprint and leap, soaring quickly from her sitting position to the building next to her. From there here view was less obstructed by the other buildings. She could see a clock tower in the distance, separated from her by a sea of more red-tiled rooftops. Whether it was working or not, she couldn't tell. A gunshot rang out somewhere, brought to her by its echo among the buildings and slanted rooftops, and suddenly she didn't care if the clock tower worked. Gunshots meant people. People had answers. Samus waited, hoping for another gunshot so she could point herself in its general direction. She waited, in almost complete silence for an unending few seconds. Another gunshot sounded- of a different caliber. Someone yelled. More gunshots, this time of a third kind sounded off in the distance. She waited, hoping for something more, and was eventually rewarded with the sound of footsteps on the street below her. A party of three ran by, wild looks in their eyes. One was a tall man with light brown hair and an apparent fetish for black leather. He ran with his sword slung over his shoulder as if it belonged there instead of a sheath. The man next to him was scruffy, but wielded a staff and a cigar. The third in the party was a girl in a green, sleeveless jumper and short-unbuttoned shorts, carrying an obnoxiously large shuriken. Samus decided not to introduce herself, and instead hopped to the next roof in the clock-tower's direction. She could shop for a favorable first encounter along the way, she decided.

She continued jumping; using every trick she knew to torque her weight across the streets successfully, with her hair trailing behind like the tail of a kite. The angled roofs were easy to navigate now that the surprise was gone and the shock had subsided. Her muscles were a familiar thing -her strength, a quantified tool that she knew the exact limits of. Jumping was as easy to her as it sounded. So she jumped, one roof at a time, leap by leap, bound by bound, aiming at a strange clock tower in a strange place, with the constant feeling of a long-dead world watching her from above.


	4. Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden

"How did you get here Harry?" Yuffie asked with a curious smile. She had a glass of water in her hands now, compliments of Sheryl, the waitress. Harry smiled back.

"Well, since you ask, I woke up the same way Samus did. Except that I was in that hotel in the Second District." He smiled as he remembered it.

"Well come on then! Tell us about it!" Yuffie demanded. "Us" included Samus Aran, Yuffie, and a Bulbasaur, who was doing what Pokémon usually do while they rummage around unnecessarily.

He demonstrated his concurment by grumbling "bulba-bulba." He added "saur" to show that he really, really meant it.

So Harry consented, and thought back to the first thing he remembered in Traverse Town.

* * *

Harry lifted his head and observed his room just enough to decide that Heaven wasn't all it was hyped up to be. His head hurt and he was hungry. He set his head back down and, after a moment of consideration, decided that, more logically, Hell wasn't all it was hyped up to be. And the blue color scheme was obnoxiously excessive. He rolled over and realized with a groan that it included the carpet.

Obscenely, a moment of realization interrupted his thoughts. His blasting rod was still clutched in his hand, and his bracelet of shields was just cooling down enough to not scald the skin on his wrist. It still hurt, and pain meant he was alive. Harry groaned again.

He was covered in dried sweat, which conflicted unpleasantly with the soft, fuzzy feeling of the bed, much the same way that his blue jeans and greatcoat did. Still, he hadn't slept well in a while, and it was soft, so he stayed put while he took stock of his various aches and pains. His legs were burning, despite his fitness, and he still had lacerations across his calf. He wondered about that for a while. A strange, blue thing had given it to him. That was still all he could figure, and he didn't like it. He groaned a third time into a pillow, hoping to diffuse the unhappiness.

It was then that something thumped. Harry had adapted a perfect response to thumps over the course of his career. He jumped to his feet, blasting rod ready, and tried not to collapse while the blood reached his head. The thump was on a balcony attached to the rear of his room. The color of the table outside was about as predictable as the drapes. But more importantly, the blue body-suit that landed on the blue porch had a very attractive young woman in it, so Dresden knew he was in more trouble than he could handle. He lowered his weapons and allowed the alarmed woman to roll the sliding glass door open.

Samus Aran stepped inside in a skin tight, blue suit that left little to the imagination. She paused to stare at him. He paused to stare at her. She smiled, happy to see another person, and all of Dresden's aches and pains went away.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," Harry answered. He considered his predicament for a third time. Heaven was well worth the hype.

"Is this your room?" He asked.

She spent a moment analyzing the proliferation of blue, then looked down at herself, then back at Dresden. "Isn't it yours?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just woke up here."

She didn't answer. "What's your name?"

"Dresden. Harry Dresden." _Professional Wizard_, he wisely decided to omit.

"Have you seen any violent, blue creatures lately?"

Harry shrugged. "No. should I have?"

"Just answer the question." Her voice had abruptly shifted to a rough monotone.

"What is this, an interrogation?"

The vestiges of Samus' smile swept all of the happiness in the room into a bag and made off out the window with it. "Yes. I'm an agent of the Galactic Federation, and I have the authority to arrest you."

Harry smiled grimly. "Well, I'm a member of the White Council, and I can assure you that they do not take kindly to having their members arrested."

Samus blinked. "I've never heard of the White Council, and until I do, I have no reason to acknowledge their authority."

Harry shrugged. "I've never heard of the Galactic Federation."

This time, it was Samus who smiled. The smile didn't bring any of the happy thoughts with it.

"So you'll resist arrest?"

Harry's scratched leg and sprained knee started aching again, along with the lacerations he now realized were on his ribs. His magic was, for the most part, spent. He knew he would never win a fight against an attractive blonde woman with a succulent C cup, anyway.

**

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**

"Harry."

Dresden paused mid-illustration with his hands cupped under his chest. Samus was glowering at him.

"Do you deny it?"

Yuffie giggled.

Aran didn't answer beyond scowling.

Cid highwind appeared at their table suddenly, and introduced himself by nearly yelling,"We talkin' 'bout 'ran's tits?"

He took Bulbasaur's chair, discarding the poor Pokémon in the process, and pulled the ashtray to his edge so he could extinguish a cartoonishly huge cigar. "Well go on," he said to the mildly surprised faces. "Don't stop on 'count a me."

So Harry continued.

**

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**

Harry shrugged. "I won't resist you." The hint of a double entendre did not serve him well. Samus nodded. "So have you seen any of those blue creatures lately?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. But I was outside, at Garfield Park. I don't know what happened after that."

"What do you mean?" She walked to a chronometer sitting on the night stand and noticed that the numbers went to twelve. She couldn't think of any planets that used multiples of twelve for their hours.

"I blacked out," Dresden responded. "I just woke up here about a minute before you landed on the balcony." He shifted his black greatcoat uncomfortably. It had bunched up around his shoulders.

"So you don't know if there are any here?"

He shrugged. "Not a clue. But hey, I'll tell you if I find any." He moved for the door, and was very alarmed to see how fast she could cut him off. "You're not going anywhere without me."

Harry considered that for a moment. "Am I under arrest?"

She smiled, somewhat happily. "Detained is the proper word. I'll arrest you if you try to escape me."

Harry smiled now. "I'm okay with that. Where are you going to take me then? Or are you just going to cuff me to the bed?"

Samus opened the door. "You just go ahead and walk nice and slow to wherever you were planning." She didn't want to give away that she didn't know where she was, and was under the impression that Dresden knew, right until they had stepped outside, past the hallway and out into the night air.

Harry looked up at the clock tower, then down into the plaza, then across to some shops. He slung his staff over his back and kept his blasting rod in one hand while he scratched his neck with the other.

"Sorry, mam," he finally said. "But I don't know where we are."

"What?"

"This isn't any part of Chicago I know. You know any good places to eat?"

Samus didn't react, not with words, or motions, or gestures. She only kept her stern, glowering face on. Whatever bizarre, inhuman ticking went on in her head was indecipherable to Harry. But at the conclusion of it, her shoulders slumped, she sighed, and she finally said in a defeatist tone, "Damn it. Fine. If you can find one, you're paying."

And lo, they entered The First District and discovered the best café in Traverse Town.

**

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**

"What's Lo mean?" Yuffie interrupted.

"Bizarre, inhuman ticking?" Aran added with a note of offense.

"Bulbasaur?"

"Good man," Cid said. "Taking the initiative."

Harry shrugged to Cid.

"What's lo mean?" Yuffie asked again.

"Bulbasaur," the creature interrupted.

"Bizarre, Inhuman Ticking?"

Harry shrugged at Samus and made a show of drinking his tea to avoid answering.

"What's lo-"

"bulba-bulbasaur!"

"I'm not the one who thinks with my dick!"

And lo, the conversation continued for quite some time.


End file.
